General Loki
General Loki is the most reccuring antagonist in the Astrosaurs children's series. Captain Teggs, Arx, Gipsy and Iggy have encountered him three times, in Riddle Of The Raptors, The Space Ghosts and The Claws Of Christmas, his most recent appearance to date. He is one of the velociraptor generals and has led them on many military campaigns. In Riddle Of The Raptors, Loki and his warriors attacked the Sauropod and kidnapped Hank and Crank, two Stegoceras athletes. Before he returned them on Planet Sixty for a ransom (gold, a satellite monitor, and some moss) he had his doctors hide explosives in their heads. The bombs were set to go off when they headbutted each other during the Great Dinosaur Games. After his plan was ruined, he tried to blow up Teggs and Gipsy himself before The Sauropod intervened and opened fire on him, blasting his ship out of orbit. His ship was then forced to crash land on Planet Sixty, where he vowed his revenge on Teggs after a run-in with some T. rexes, and he had to sacrifice his crew to them in order to leave. Then, five books later, in The Space Ghosts, he tried to use his supply of dispum and mysterious blue crystals to create an army of ghostly raptors that could turn invisible and then instantly visible at the blink of an eye. To do this, he landed on Creepus and used a workforce of raptor miners to gather the necessary materials, setting a trap for any intruders and burying an abandoned kentrosaurus ship in the sand, not to mention using a monster named the kraggle-scruncher as a guard to keep the kentrosaurus themselves, now ghosts, away. But, as he escaped Creepus in a raptor death ship, he was shot down by Shanta and his diplodocus miners while his raptor soldiers were defeated by Spink's own workers.Plod trapped Loki under her foot as he fled the scene and he was safely locked away in jail for a time. Finally, six books later, in The Claws Of Christmas, he escaped, landed on Exmus, kidnapped Papa Claws, took his place, and planned to hide an army of raptors in Christmas presents using Papa Claws's minaturization technology to take The Vegetarian Sector by surprise. His activities on Exmus were revealed when he sent another raptor, Ranpak, on a mission to get Iggy Tooth out of the way once and for all. Teggs and Iggy chased him into space, scattered his battle fleet, and forced him to crash-land on Stinkoss. Apparently the DSS has stopped him for now, as he has not yet made any other appearances. However, in Revenge of the FANG, Attila planned to make a dino-droid copy of him, but, due to time and a shortage of necessary materials, decided to use King Albu, another early villain, instead. Trivia General Loki is a member of the species Velociraptor mongoliensis. Loki and the other raptors typically lack the killing claws that real Velociraptors used to attack their prey in their illustrations in the book. They are described as having them in Riddle of the Raptors, in The Claws of Christmas Loki has a stubby "dew claw" attached to the side of his foot, and their collectors' cards include these special claws. Loki has orange, scaly skin while real Velociraptors had feathers. General Loki has a tendency to rant about his many titles, and is usually interrupted by Teggs before he can finish as a sort of running gag. He mentions different dinosaurs in his speech depending on the book. Loki and all the other raptors have forked tongues, a feature that was eventually added to all carnivorous dinosaurs that appear in the series, no matter what the breed. However, real theropods did not have this kind of tongue. There appear to be at least three types of raptor- the orange, striped kind that General Loki commands, a green variation of the previous type, and a third variation (represented by an unnamed raptor that is a member of Spiny Jim's crew and the pair that appear in Terror Underground) that doesn't have any stripes or hide markings at all. However, the three variations could simply be inconsistency on the part of the illustrator, as there is no evidence to support the theory that the plain variety is anything but members of the genus Velociraptor like Loki and his warriors. General Loki's name has two possible origins. It could be a corruption of the "loci" part of his species name, Velociraptor. However, it is more likely that General Loki is named after the Norse god of mischief, Loki. A mysterious carnivore on the cover of The Dreams of Dread could be General Loki, emerging from a dream to haunt Teggs. Category:Astrosaurs Category:Villains Category:Raptors